This Week in Comics

What did I buy the week of April 25th? EVERYTHING!!! No, just a few good stuff. Let me show you.



52: Week Fifty-One
This week in 52 we make it up to the second-to-last issue. Amazing that it has been nearly a year since this comic started and I am still buying it. I can't say that for that many others (Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing, etc) which I dropped during the meantime.
This issue shows Animal Man, Adam Strange, and Starfire all concluding their journies, and I was quite happy with the results. For one thing though, Starfire was never drawn so good as she was when she shows up. It was much better than her usual slutty/model style.
Lobo is also shown as well, and that was cool. I guess I should check out Brave and the Bold next month to find out more about him post-52.
And finally, we have the return of Rip Hunter and Booster Gold as we see their story, which is by-far the most interesting one at this point. I have waited weeks to see them again so I was happy when I did last week. Now they get more screentime.
Also, have you wondered since week 1 or 2 where Mr. Mind was? Well, check him out in this issue.
Brilliant. So much better than last week or before.

Also, check out next week's cover:







Amazons Attack # 1

Was ho-hum. It was much better than anyone else has said it was, and the art has been wonderful. It also will tie-in with Teen Titans in the coming months, so I might as well try it out so later on I will know.



Justice Society of America # 5

This continues a crossover with JLA right now, and if you read JLA # 8...well, basically you wasted time. You might as well have just started here, because JLA # 8 was a waste of time. There was only very very little set up there. Also, suddenly Starman has become less interesting. His personality isn't as cool as I thought it was now that we know who he is, though we always have. Maybe the writers just lost their feel for the character. Or maybe the whole crossover thing has hurt Geoff Johns who I love, because Meltzer is involved and seriously, the only good thing Brad has ever written was Identity Crisis.



Outsiders Annual # 1

For someone who has been growing to hate Winick, I have to admit this issue was a good conclusion, but those three Outsiders issues that led into this...? Yeah, those were a waste of time. They should have really just used this book, with maybe one lead-in, or none at all and tighter writing on Winick's part. The one good thing about this book? The guy who drew that horrible cover is not the artist, who on the interior art, rocks. It is actually drawn good for once.
Now that I know why the Outsiders are criminals, as well have read this far, I might drop the series. I dropped Checkmate months ago, so a crossover with them wouldn't keep me buying, especially when the crossover seems to go on for like...6 or more issues. Too much money for two teams I just barely enjoy.



Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America--Avengers

This one covers the step that be Anger, after last issue's denial. Anger is right. This book was pretty decent, but Jeph Loeb did some things that don't work in continuity. Also, I just am getting tired of him. Spider-Man is given most of this issue...and yet Spider-Man will be the featureed character in the fourth installment of this series, so why see him now? I don't need that much Spider-Man. I was looking more for the Avengers' look at how the death is taken, and we see the Mighty and New Avengers doing thier stuff. But if this book is about teams, then it is a failure. We only see one person from each team really do anything about it. There isn't any reason to make a book about two teams if only two characters of about 15-20 are even used to make the point. Wolverine had his screentime, so we get to see him again. We get it Loeb, you wish you could write Wolverine all the time. Did you know you suck on that series too right now?
Still, just as always, the art is great.



Fantastic Four # 545
I don't really care anymore about this series. I'm done with it. I don't like the New Fantastic Four, but hey, I don't think I ever liked the old one either. I basically just skimmed through this, and yes, Gravity shows up. And yes, I don't give a hoot about Gravity. This is like reading fanfiction...maybe someone at Marvel hired a fanfiction writer.

Now, I love Marvel. It just wasn't their week. It wasn't that good for DC either, except for 52 which bowled me over. JSA wasn't so bad itself either.

One Improvement

To improve the class, just make sure we all know what the heck it is we are supposed to be doing. Also, I know when I had to get an affiliate and a tool I ran into some trouble, so more explanation of what those are and how to get them would greatly have improved this class I believe. I have to say that for the first time this class being offered, it had very little scratches to its finish.

The Best and the Worst

The Best part of class: Hard to tell. I think I liked it all as much as I could. The best part though, probably that when people ask me what class it is, I have no idea what to tell them. The reply I have is, "Well, the class changed. It's something with newswriting and blogs now."

The worst part: 8:30 classes when I have to commute to get there, much like the professor. It is terrible to have to commute since it means waking up earlier and dealing with the mess that is New Jersey roads.

The Duration of My Time on the Blogosphere

Will I remain with this blog even after this class is done? Part of me says yes, part of me says no. Regardless I will continue to for awhile so long as I have time. For the most part I might move on to making a new blog or site. I want to make a change out there. It turns out I'm strongly against littering and as such I hope to do something about it. At this moment I am not too sure what I can do aside from participate with others, but they always have bad timing for me when choosing dates to do clean-ups. What I think I might do is start my own group. Maybe next year here around Monmouth that will be dedicated to cleaning up the streets or just overall awareness that Hey, don't be a jerk and clean up after yourself. If not that, maybe some other environmental group that overall preserves nature.

DC

I am off to DC this evening for a Tuesday of outrageous stress. I will go to the convention there about journalism and I forget the whole title. I will find out more once I get there about what I will be doing. Basically, I am along for the ride on this one with my own intentions basically being that I find out more about Journalism or at least politics. Rush Holt is running it, and he is from a district near mine (Chris Smith is mine).
This is going for the WMCX News as well, so I hope we get good stuff to air the following week.
I sort of forget I will be missing a town or county election that day, but I would have missed it anyway due to school, so it's OK with me.
I do hate missing classes though. I'm the typical guy who would come to school even when sick because it means that such to me. I want to be there. So I kind of wish this event happened at a different time then my classes.
Anyway, away I go soon. Hope everyone has fun where they are!

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa

This movie continues from where the 50 episode TV series left off. First of all, it is not often that things like this happens. That being, an anime movie based on a TV series that actually has anything to do with the TV series itself. Normally the movie is not related to the stories of the TV show and can be pretty much be thought of as never happening. FMA (as it is called) has a continuation present right here from the show itself. Is it really needed? What can another hour or so add to a 25 hour long series? Nothing much. Just a sense of closure, and yet it doesn't even get closure on all fronts. I mean, the only reason you can say there is closure in this story is because pretty much those characters that needed it died. Everyone else is still left without much closure because they are now unable to fulfill that by the movie's end. The only closure there is in this movie, is to the overall theme of the show itself. The story began with two brothers making a mistake in trying to bring back their mother from death. They kept trying to fix mistakes and being selfish and in this movie the two find that being selfish, even with good intentions, doesn't lead to anything good. So what can you do? Fix it.



I think Edward Elric, one of, no, probably the movie's main character, is realizing this at this point of the movie. You can tell he has grown up, and accepted the responsibility of that. This is what I take from the movie. The story offers great art, story, and a bit of action. I just wish Ed and Winry would be together. It sort of seems they like one another, but neither ever admits to it directly. Plus, yeah, Mustang comes out of his funk, but he was waiting for Ed to come back, if Ed leaves again, doesn't that leave him in a funk once more?

Tool

border="0" alt="HTML Counter">

Free Hit Counter




Since I kind of failed, I decided to leave this counter here. Why is putting html in a problem for blogger? I can't have a RSS and I can't even have this. If I could have figured how to put RSS up I would have.